Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) announced that the world’s first ice class LNG carrier, Christophe de Margerie, finished its ice trials in the Arctic Ocean.
The vessel was built by DSME for Russian shipping company, Sovcomflot, and was moored at the Zeebrugge liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, on late January. During the commissioning phase, the ship was tested for its ice breaking ability of proceeding through ice of 2.1 m thick. She has the length of 299 m, width of 50 m and draught of 11.8, deadweight of 80,200 t, capacity of 128,800 GRT, ice class Arc7 allowing for breaking through 2.1-metre thick ice. In addition, the vessel has ABB TPL-C turbochargers on board which among the many benefits that they offer, the TPL-71C and TPL-76C turbochargers installed, they also offer improved turbine washing which makes it easier to handle extreme conditions(such as heat with particles in the fuel melting and depositing on turbocharger components).
Under a 20-year contract, the ship has been custom-designed and built for the Yamal LNG project, to perform year-round navigation through the Arctic to its destination markets.
A fleet of 15 similar vessels will be serving the Yamal LNG production terminal and will call on a regular basis at the Zeebrugge LNG terminal to perfom transshipment operations to conventional LNG carriers for further redelivery to all kind of destinations including Asia.
